Thoughts & musings

Since 1980, the average age of Nobel prize winners, when they made their prize-winning discovery, is 48. Innovation comes with experience.

Self -driving cars (cars you can drive, but can also drive themselves) and driverless cars (where you're a passenger along with everyone else) are going to happen and they're going to happen more quickly than most people think. 

Back in 1987, Australia was a country of micro-economic reform experts. Thirty years later, the pet shop galah has been replaced by the barbeque NBN expert, skewering Fibre to the Node as deftly as he's sticking a fork in the sausages on the hotplate. Many of these "expert opinions" are based on a sound knowledge of telecommunication networks and economics. Just as many of these opinions are based on myths.

It's time to do some mythbusting. 

457 visa holders comprise 0.8% of the Australian workforce. They earn incomes and pay tax from Day 1. They are not taking Australians' jobs because they only comprise the aforementioned 0.8% of the workforce.

The recent changes to make 457 visas fixed duration with no pathway to permanent residence and citizenship are Brexit-level dumb, Hanson-level xenophobic, Katter-level protectionist, and Trump-level self-destructive.

This is what happens when governments outsource immigration policy to tabloid newspapers and shock jocks, and treat immigration as a national security issue rather than an economic opportunity.